Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Howard Dean On The State of the Campaign

From DailyKos:

In an interview with NPR:

Dean: "...resolve the very close race and maintain party unity...We want the voters to vote, and they have so far in huge numbers. And after the voters vote, if there's still no verdict, then we'll have to figure out how to keep the party together as we get a verdict. But right now we want to focus on the voters voting."

Dean: "...there are no such thing as a few hundred party hotshots. The superdelegates look exactly like the Democratic Party...our superdelegates look like the rest of America and they look like the Democratic Party and they got elected by the same people who voted in the primaries, just at a different time. They're uncommitted, but that doesn't mean they're party hotshots..."

Siegel: "Not even a cosmetic problem for the Democratic Party if the winner of the pledged delegates is...overwhelmed by superdelegates?"

Dean: "I think that would be surprising for that to happen...there's already been I think over 400 superdelegates that have already committed."

Siegel asks Dean about Florida and Michigan (Gov. Charlie Crist says every vote should count). "Re-do primary?"

Dean: "...you've got to stick to the rules...I wish Florida and Michigan had done that, because it would make this much easier. But once the rules are set, everybody knows who's running for president what the rules are. And if you change the rules in the middle of the game you're disadvantaging or advantaging one of the candidates. That you cannot do because it destroys the credibility of the process. Having said that...Governor Crist is onto something here. There is a process within the rules, they can come and petition and give the rules committee a new plan for selecting their delegates. We're very open to that..."

Siegel: "What about seating delegates chosen in the primaries that took place, is that absolutely out?"

Dean: "Well it's ultimately up to the credentials committee. It's a clear violation of the rules of this campaign. And so I'd be very surprised if the rules committee of the DNC would do that. What the credentials committee does is up to the credentials committee, we don't have any control over that..."

Dean talks about reasoning for allowing South Carolina and Nevada to go earlier this year. Geographic, ethnic and racial diversity. Everyone, including Florida and Michigan, voted for it.

Dean: "The problem with Florida moving forward is not only was it incredibly disrespectful to all the other states that voted for it and kept their word, it also stepped on South Carolina, which was our way of including large numbers of African Americans in the process to select the Democratic nominee..."

Siegel: Are there constructive negotiations going on to solve the Florida and Michigan delegations problem?

Dean: "We have tried to negotiate with the Florida party and the Michigan party for a long time and basically been told they're not interested in negotiating...We're not interested in disenfranchising Florida and Michigan voters; they're important to us. But what we are saying is we have to be respectful of the other 48 states who stuck by the rules, played by the rules. And we most certainly have to be respectful of the candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who knew what the rules were...and changing the rules halfway through the game is incredibly unfair to both of those candidates and frankly would split the Democratic Party so we're not going to do it."



Thoughts?

5 comments:

the poet Shazza said...

One word: Arrogance.

The consensus is, as the US moves closer to the Democratic Convention, that Howard Dean made a mistake in assuming an "all or nothing" dismissal of the Florida and Michigan Delegation would be an open and close decision.

As political ties go, this type of chaos within the Democratic Party hasn't happened since the 1960's which ended with violent results. That happened practically due to the Powers That Be's last minute decision during the convention. Here, today, the Democrats have an opportunity to deal with the rules before it gets to the Convention. Already as the US moves closer to the Convention, rumors of "fixing", "rule changing", "favoritism", "racism", "unorganized" etc., are building and the results can be percentages of Democrats protesting in ways that will give fuel for the opposition Party to use for a National win.

Howard Dean's measure to punish those within Florida and Michigan silences over five and a half million American citizens. Although rules are rules, the rules that make up the National Democratic Party have enough wiggle room to create a solution to this. HOWARD DEAN needs to check his Ego and allow for a NEW VOTE. There is time between now and the next vote (which is 5 weeks from now). Just imagin, 30% from each state not voting in PROTEST? That would be and easimate of 3,850,000 people not voting or changing their Party affiliation. That is HUGE.

Force HOWARD DEAN to fix this and then BOOT him from the leadership positon. This all could have been solved a long time ago if not for EGO.

Anonymous said...

Dude you really don't like Obama huh?

Andre said...

If the Dems are to restore any order in their party, Howard Dean and the rest of his DNC buffoons need to use this circumstance as an impetus to rewrite the rules they follow in picking their nominee. Rather than allowing small states like NH and Iowa to start and dictate the pace of the primary/caucus season, the DNC needs to have each state's primaries all within one week (I say do them all on one day, but I think a week would be enough time to cover all 50 states). That way, states like Michigan and Florida won't have to play renegade against an insipid system; only to be penalized for doing so.

Sigh. When will they learn...?

Anonymous said...

Andre--
The problem with that is that if you bring the large states up, the big-money-television-advertisement-sound-bite style of campaigning would be the only style of campaigning. People with high name recognition would be almost invincible, and the power of big donors and the party apparatus would be even greater.

If you want everyone to have a voice, Dean and his 50-state strategy should be your man, not some sort of obstacle.

Andre said...

@ Anonymous:

"The problem with that is that if you bring the large states up, the big-money-television-advertisement-sound-bite style of campaigning would be the only style of campaigning. People with high name recognition would be almost invincible, and the power of big donors and the party apparatus would be even greater."

As opposed to the current system...?